Posts tagged privilege
Love From the Linden Trees
This is my awesome tagline
I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about; I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people—Americans and Europeans—come back and go, ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on.
(Source: runouttheguns, via wildwhitenorth)
A woman’s worst nightmare? That’s pretty easy. Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a male friend why men feel threatened by women, he answered, “They are afraid women will laugh at them.” When she asked a group of women why they feel threatened by men, they said, “We’re afraid of being killed.
http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/articles/nightmare.html (via alullaby)
This reminds me of a discussion we had in school, and one girl was talking about living in fear of her safety because she is a girl, and this guy chimed in and was all “It’s hard for guys too! I’m so awkward around girls! It’s embarrassing!” Yeah, not the same thing, exactly?
(via tulletulle)
This reminds me of an article about online (heterosexual) dating that I read a while ago. It listed men’s and women’s worst fears about meeting someone from online. The highest ranked fear that men had was that their date would be fat, whereas the highest ranked fear that women had was that their date would turn out to be violent and kill them.
I think that says a lot.
(via kaitg)
This is a pretty classic privilege dynamic I think, and one that we as a society tend to downplay in order to give the privileged even more volume.
Men are afraid women will laugh at them or won’t have sex with them, women are afraid men will kill them.
Rich people are upset that everyone else is calling them “greedy” instead of “job creators”, everyone else is upset that they can’t afford health care.
White people are afraid of being called racist by people of color, people of color are afraid of being killed by white people (especially white people in positions of authority, like police).
Straight people are afraid of having their “marriages ruined” by other people getting married, queer people are afraid of being beaten to death.
Cis people are afraid of having to share a bathroom with someone different than they are, trans people are afraid of being murdered.
This is really just a perfect X, Y statement to sum up the most basic tenet of privilege: if you are privileged, the majority of the time you don’t fear for your basic survival.
(via stfusexists)
(via elvesarebad)
I know I reblogged a post where a woman punched a man for making rape threats and then reblogged another post where a dude rants about how it’s not right to say men can’t hit woman, but my point is violence against women is a big fucking problem.
I don’t have time for people who uphold the patriarch.
If you want to claim men and women can be equal when fucking each other up I’m gonna have to disagree, because men have and continue to fuck up women on a greater scale than women could ever hope to even scratch. It’s more than just physical violence, there are laws put in place to make women seem like they are less than men. We have all been conditioned to make sure men (especially white, cis, straight men) get all the damn privilege.
(via masteradept)
Male privilege is
referring to sex as “getting it in” or “getting your dick wet.” If you can’t refer to it as a mutual act then go fuck yourself.
thinking that you have the right to legislate over my body when the word “vagina” disgusts you.
assuming that any female who does not end up with a partner for life was simply “undesirable” while a male in the same situation is assumed to have made a choice.
calling me honey, sweetheart, or baby when I do not even know you, but am simply ringing up your items and being nice because that’s what they pay me for.
making a commercial that claims something ridiculous is “not for women.” Like a certain kind of soda.
(Source: all-about-male-privilege, via deliciouskaek)
Why reverse racism does not exist.
(via masteradept)
White Privilege: Now What & Other Such Fallacies
Examples of what white privilege deniers THINK it means to be told to “Check Your Privilege.”
- Apologize for being white
- Believe white is bad or wrong
- Be ashamed of being white
- Feel guilty for being white
Examples of what people ACTUALLY mean when they say “Check Your Privilege.”
- You are inserting yourself into a conversation where you shouldn’t be. Acknowledge what you are doing, apologize and stop it.
- You are making my pain about you. Acknowledge what you are doing, apologize and stop it.
- You are belittling my pain. Acknowledge what you are doing, apologize and stop it.
- You are making my fears concerns and troubles less important than your annoyance about me talking about my experience. Acknowledge what you are doing, apologize and stop it.
Now What?
If you believe that PoC want you to apologize for having white privilege, you are wrong. To be honest, I don’t get why you would think that in the first place. Let’s pretend for a second that I DO want you to apologize for having white privilege. Then, let’s pretend that you actually do apologize to me. How does that help me in ANY way? You see, some of you believe that we want to take away what you have or we want you to be ashamed of what you have. This is not the case. We want to be treated like human beings and we want you to understand that you don’t get to assert yourself or your feelings ABOUT OUR FEELINGS onto us or into our conversations.
Your guilt over white privilege also does me no good. You feel guilty? Okay and…? What does that do for either of us? If anything, your guilt tends to bring out MORE racism, not less. We don’t want to be treated BETTER, we want to be treated EQUALLY. Don’t pretend you like Black Joe when Black Joe is an asshole. That does not prove to me that you aren’t racist, it proves that you ARE racist because you are ONLY “Friends” with him BECAUSE he’s black.
Again…how does that help me in any way?
So you want to know what you should do about your White Privilege? See the second set of examples and follow them to the letter. Know that even if society tells you otherwise, you are not better, more important or more valid than anyone else. Know that your opinion should not be something you hold higher. Especially in situations you have not personally lived through. Generally, stop making things about you. That’s really the basics. No one believes that things are going to change so drastically that white privilege will disappear. We are all realistic people. It isn’t about taking something away from you. It is about you not trying to add you to our lives. It’s not about you. If you can only remember one thing, let that be it. It is not about you.
(via foxglovesandaconite)
White people’s responses to the Jane Elliot video…
Is all pure fucking emotional manipulation.
And fuck y’all for it.
You can fucking stop that shit now. PoC responding are not going to give you the desired result of drying up your tears, apologizing for laughing at the white kids crying in the video (placing their white fee fees and comfort above the truth), and never daring to talk about racism which was discussed in the video to spare your feelings.
There’s no doubt that ANYBODY can go through bullying and abuse. But that video was about showing white people what bullying and abuse we go through every damn day of our lives. They will never be bullied for being white or blue-eyed in the real world. In fact, they’ll be worshiped for it. Pointing all that out doesn’t negate abuse people go through, but it’s a hell of a lot easier to dismiss racism and abuse PoC go through than it is to face up to your own issues.
And all of you crying about, “But what if they have went through bullying and abuse! They could have been triggered by that exercise! Bless their hearts!” For one, they KNEW what they were getting themselves into and that their comfort might not be held in high regard. They knew before the experiment. PoC usually don’t have a warning when we face racism. And if we cry and storm out, then nobody would give a shit about our feelings. We’d just be looked down on as hypersensitive children and give white people even more of an excuse to act racist.
Second, Jane Elliot was merely pointing out the truth, not “abusing” and “bullying” for the hell of it. The truth isn’t pretty or nice and shouldn’t be sugar-coated as such just so that it can be easier to swallow (and therefore not recognized at all).
And third, again, this is emotional manipulation. You’re asking PoC to drop the racism issue for a second to attend to a white woman’s tears. Fuck what we go through — which you usually ignore, if not laugh at yourselves.
I mean, go ahead and get off the computer, go outside, and enjoy your white privilege. You can easily escape the discomfort seeing those videos made you feel. Just turn off the computer or bury your head in the sand. But stop rushing in and trying to remove the spotlight from the truth about racism (which rarely gets a spotlight) and try to put it back on you.
(via razycrandomcunt)
Disdain for “political correctness” is often positioned as a concern that some important truth is not being spoken for fear of offending someone. But that concern is nothing but smoke and mirrors. To invoke “political correctness” is really to be concerned about loss of power and privilege. It is about disappointment that some “ism” that was ingrained in our society, so much that citizens of privilege could express the bias through word and deed without fear of reprisal, has been shaken loose. Charging “political correctness” generally means this: “I am comfortable with my privilege. I don’t want to have to question it. I don’t want to have to think before I speak or act. I certainly don’t wish to inconvenience myself for the comfort of lesser people (whoever those people may be—women, people of color, people with disabilities, etc.)
(via femfreq)
Here’s what you need to realise about anti-racism: It’s not about you. It’s not about your feelings as a white person. What you just said is that you’ll entertain the idea of listening to POC talk about ways they’ve been fucked over by whiteness, white privilege, and white people as long as they don’t hurt your feelings.
To put it another way: you’re saying that not having your feelings hurt is more important to you than actually trying to understand PoC’s experiences of enduring racism—which is, itself, perpetuating racism. No, maybe you didn’t partake in whatever act of racism we’re talking about in this very moment, but if you’re white, then you are benefiting from the systemic racism that allowed it to happen, whether you like it or not.
Yes, listening to the ways that your privilege fucks over other people is uncomfortable. Yes, it can be embarrassing & lead to feelings of guilt, but it is not up to People of Color to censor ourselves to spare your delicate fee-fees. If you truly want to be considered anti-racist, you need to deal with those feelings with other white people & not add to the burden of PoC’s experiences of racism by saying that you won’t take us seriously unless we’re ‘nice’ about the emotional & psychological violence that we endure simply by being PoC in a racist society.
So literally, all I want you to do is understand that being anti-oppression (of any kind) is about understanding how the oppressed group is affected & then countering those systems, activities, mindsets, etc. It’s not about you being comfortable, because if you’re doing it right, it’s not going to be comfortable.
VELOCICRAFTOR (via sapphrikah)
Yes. Fucking yes. Fucking yes so many times. I wish I could print small versions of these and keep them in my wallet like business cards.
(via unheardofsongs)
(via girl-germs)
whb2:
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977)
Mississippi Appendectomy
Peace to Ms Hamer and all the Black, Native American and Latin Woman who were subjected to forced sterilization.
MS Fannie Lou Hamer was a Wife, Daughter, Black Activist, A major figure in the civil rights movement and…a victim.
Back in 1961 Fannie Lou was diagnosed with a small uterine tumor. She checked into the Sunflower City Hospital to have it removed. Without her knowledge or consent, without any indication of medical necessity, the operating physician took the liberty of performing a complete hysterectomy.
Three years later, as a leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Ms. Hamer spoke about her experience to an audience in Washington D.C. – telling them that she was one of many black women in her area that had been a victim of a “Mississippi appendectomy” (an unwanted, unrequested and unwarranted hysterectomy given to poor and unsuspecting Black women). According to research, 60% of the black women in Sunflower County, Mississippi were subjected to postpartum sterilizations at Sunflower City Hospital without their permission.
A number of physicians who examined these women after the procedure was performed confirm that the practice of sterilizing Southern Black women through trickery or deceit was widespread.
But it does not end there. The forced sterilization of black women got its start during slavery, but has persisted in less overt forms in recent years. A 1991 experiment that implanted the now-defunct birth control device Norplant into African American teenagers in Baltimore was applauded by some observers as a way to “reduce the underclass.”Dr. Lester Hibbard of L.A. County Hospital admits in 1972 that vaginal tubal ligations were sometimes selected over abdominal tubal ligations because of their “instructional value,” even though the vaginal procedure often led to serious complications.
According to the acting director of a municipal hospital in New York City in 1975, “In most major teaching hospitals in New York City, it is the unwritten policy to do elective hysterectomies on poor, Black, and Puerto Rican women with minimal indications, to train residents … at least 10% of gynecological surgery in New York is done on this basis. And 99% of this is done on Blacks and Puerto Rican women.”
During the late 1960s and the early 1970s, a policy of involuntary surgical sterilization was imposed upon Native American women in the United States, usually without their knowledge or consent, by the federally funded Indian Health Service (IHS), then run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). It is alleged that the existence of the sterilization program was discovered by members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) during its occupation of the BIA headquarters in 1972. A 1974 study by Women of All Red Nations (WARN), concluded that as many as 42 percent of all American Indian women of childbearing age had, by that point, been sterilized without their consent.
A subsequent investigation was conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), though it was restricted to only four of the many IHS facilities nationwide and examined only the years 1973 to 1976. The GAO study showed that 3,406 involuntary sterilizations were performed in these four IHS hospitals during this three-year period. Consequently, the IHS was transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services in 1978.
by Serena Sebring
Forced sterilization of BLACK, NATIVE AMERICAN, AND PUERTO RICAN women. Yet another affirmation of why it is important for minorities to unite and fight for one another.
I’ve read about Fannie Lou Hamer several times, and each time it makes me sick. Though recently, its made me sicker… and angry.
I think this speaks to the fact that as a woman, you need to be able to be empowered about your health. And that if a woman is poor, lacks education and happens to be brown, her ability to do so is significantly diminished.
Just because its 2011 doesn’t mean that this kind of thing hasn’t stopped.
I’ll use myself as an example. When I was diagnosed with fibroids and ovarian cysts in 2009 (after basically diagnosing myself because they were trying to treat me for PID), the first gyn I went to told me that his surgical plan was to remove my ovaries, since the cysts were so large.
I told him that was unacceptable because I haven’t had any children, and I was married to a man I wanted to have kids with. He told me I might have to give up my dream of conceiving with my husband. I told him I knew that cystectomies had been performed on cysts larger and more complex than mine (basically called his skills into question).
He looked at me funny for a moment… and basically told me to find another doctor.
So I did. A black, female reproductive endocrinologist who performed my surgery elegantly and preserved all my parts. She currently monitors my fertility so that when we choose to, we can have children.
But see… I have the benefit of having family in the medical field, as well as working in healthcare myself. I also have the benefit of extensive education and the ability to advocate for myself.
Many poor women don’t. Especially poor women of color.
I’m happy that so many of my friends are in the medical field… and that they themselves have been through experiences similar to mine. We need to do more though… and I’ve just been inspired. I have an idea.
epic commentary.
(via masteradept)
Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. It’s about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf.
(Source: feministdisney, via anotsosadsong)
If I were to write a children’s book about derailing on the internet it would totally have whales in it
This would be a great book for children AND politicians.
Oh yeah. I feel like the privilege whale would say, “I’m sorry IF you were offended.” There’s always that fucking IF.
(via foxglovesandaconite)
The people who stand for the rights of minorities seem to discriminate more than anyone I’ve met. One person wronged you so you hate a whole group. You blame someone for something their ancestors did. You can’t promote acceptance while preaching hatred.
I’m tired of being put down for the color of my skin and people laughing at me because of it, telling me I’ve never had to deal with anything because I’m white. I’ve been through hell and back while most of them live up in their fancy little houses where their mothers and fathers and tell me that I’m privileged.
I’m not “white.” I’m Irish and Native American and a little bundle of missmatched cultures.
Stop saying they and them and start saying us and we.
The only way to get through any hardship is to work through it as a whole group rather than divided clots of hate.
Why not form a mass of love.
We’re cultures not colors. And there’s more in common with us than you know.
more shit I could not make up if I wanted to, from someone who continues to miss all of the entire point & just needs to STFU & have a seat.
I bet the people who you think hate you because they think you’re a white dude actually hate you cuz you’re a shite douche. #JustSayin’
(via velocicrafter)
OH FOR FU-UCK’S SAKE.
You know when I last thought shit like “Why not form a mass of love. We’re cultures not colors” was an actual, meaningful way to approach the world? WHEN I WAS LIKE IN THE EIGHTH GOD-DAMNED GRADE. When we were taught about how we shouldn’t see color and America was a wonderful all-tolerant melting pot and I was stupid and fourteen years old and filled with white privilege and I didn’t know any better.
Then I got out into the real world eventually and realized that, while I was busy not seeing color, all the black kids in my elementary school got stuck out in the shitty portables while I had the fancy new classroom with the computer (this was back in the 80s, hence “the computer”), there’d been like one black kid in my three years of private middle school, and the grown-ups in my neighborhood were starting to mutter about “the Mexicans” moving in and driving property values down. When I was a kid, I had no black friends, or Hispanic, Mexican, or Latin@ friends. All of my friends where as white as white could be, and it never occurred to me until I was much older to wonder why this was the case, if I wasn’t supposed to see color at all.
So, as you may have guessed from my reference to the 1980s, I was in the eighth grade in the 90s. That is almost twenty fucking years ago now. And my fellow white people are still busy pouring their heart and souls into believing this outdated, inaccurate, sorry-ass excuse for copping out on being allies to POC, and insisting that POC are the ones seeing color and being hateful when it’s a white person who’s seen color and been hateful in the first goddamn place.
I really, REALLY want to know where the original comment was posted, because it is fucking sad as shit. It’s goddamn disgraceful, hypocritical, repulsive, and so many other adjectives my brain is going to stop working trying to come up with them all.
(via dr-wtfox)
(via nolongerwtfox-deact)
Slutwalk, the n-word, and moral cowardice
I’ve been staying quiet about the Slutwalk NYC racefail so far because I didn’t feel like I had anything significant to add. There have been lots of WOC here on Tumblr and in the blogosphere who have written brilliantly about it.
But lately, I keep seeing people on my Dash bringing up Yoko Ono as an excuse of some sort. So, as an Asian American woman, I felt moved to finally say something. Here it is:
The fact that another woman used the n-word once to make a political point doesn’t excuse this fuckery, White people:
And it still doesn’t matter if the woman who coined the phrase and wrote that song was not White. In fact, she’s not off the hook for using the n-word either! Asians have had a long, shameful history of participating in White oppression of Blacks.
Plus, Yoko was writing from a place of profound ignorance about American racial politics. 1) She was an immigrant from a country where she was in the ethnic majority 2) She coined the phrase and co-wrote the song in the 1970s—hardly a time of racial enlightenment! Like so many other feminists, Ono and Lennon are guilty of having used Black women’s backs as a bridge to ‘progress’. How exactly does bringing Ono up excuse those White women in the picture above, the Slutwalk organizers, or their defenders?
What kind of damned fool thinks Asian ignorance and racism can be used to excuse White ignorance and racism?
Yoko Ono did not give White feminists a Hood Pass! John Lennon did not give White feminists a Hood Pass! There’s no such thing as a fucking Hood Pass! There is no non-problematic way for a non-Black person to use the n-word. None.
It is downright pitiful that people keep trying to hide their racism behind a dead musician and an ignorant Asian.
Thank you for writing this, I think these are all great points, and I certainly agree with all of them. This is an instance of my privilege (and the privilege of the organizers and the creator of the sign) that I hadn’t really thought critically about this song. I have the privilege to not have to be faced with the ugly reality of that word and its presence in every day life; that doesn’t mean that I should be excused for not doing so. And same goes for the asshole with the sign.
THIS JUST RUINED MY
DAYLIFE.Mr Depp, having your photograph taken because you are a rich white successful and attractive dude is not like being raped.
Every male let’s me down eventually on the not being an oppressive fuckface front, even Johnny.
Oh Johnny dear, get yo shit together. And tell us when you do, cuz I ain’t watching you anymore until then.
fuck. this. dude.
also they won’t put “fuck” in this article but they’ll put “rape”? really?
omg fuck johnny depp. srsly.
SERIOUSLY CELEBS? PLZ STOP COMPARING HAVING YOUR PHOTO TAKEN TO BEING RAPED.
A continuation about why I side-eye Johnny Depp.
what a dreamkiller. no. just no. having a flash go off vs rape? what THE fuck?
AGAIN someone using a word for what it is not meant. I wish muthfuckers would actually read a damn dictionary. Can we start slapping fuckers when they misuse words…fuck grammar and punctuation I just want these asshats to stop tossing words around like its confetti.
